Most importantly, Pastor Mark is a family man. In 1988, when Pastor Mark was a 17-year-old high school student, a young woman named Grace gave him a nice Bible. Mark, a non-practicing Catholic at the time, was born again reading that Bible in college. He and Grace were married at the age of 21, graduated at 22, and planted a church at 25 in the living room of their home, while both working full time jobs. At the age of 26 they welcomed their first child, Ashley, and today have three sons and two daughters. The Driscoll kids are all walking with Jesus and helped plant The Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona as a family ministry. Pastor Mark has debated Deepak Chopra on one of his multiple appearances on ABC's Nightline ; discussed marriage with Barbara Walters on The View ; bantered with the hosts at Fox and Friends ; co-hosted Loveline with Dr. Drew; and argued for the truth of God's Word on separate occasions with Piers Morgan and D.L. Hughley on CNN. Additionally, he has authored books including Real Marriage (with his wife Grace), Who Do You Think You Are, Vintage Jesus, Doctrine , and many more.

Peter uses the word ἀπολογία in his epistle. We have to have a good reason why we believe what we believe. We have to be able to understand it well enough in order to articulate it to someone who is either a non-Christian (and they are a lot more common today, I was one). Or to defend against those who are actively antagonistic towards the Christian faith. I will stipulate that it usually doesn’t work against those who are antagonistic. Frankly they are very set in their belief, they are not interested in changing their beliefs and if anything, have chosen to oppose your Christian belief. They are not interested in other points of view and really never make critical examinations or understanding of their own points of view. I know Christians are often accused of that mind set, but I’ve seen it a lot more in secularists. They really don’t have a good understanding of theology, of philosophy, of science, etc, and they really don’t care. “It’s all about what I can see, touch, quantify and everything else is fantasy…” Something to that effect. Well, there’s a whole lot in the world that we know is there, but we really can’t explain it.

Sorry, this is stupid. Ben Shapiro’s good friend and colleague Andrew Klavan is a Christian that believes in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and not just in a metaphorical sense. I believe he is an evangelical. They talk all the time on air for everyone to see. The IDW is not a formal group that invites people in by voting. Not at all. They’re just people who disagree on things but want to talk honestly and not get beat up for it. I will admit I did not watch the full two hours of this, but the page of text in the description was enough for me to tell that this guy doesn’t understand what these people are about. It’s not a group concerned about diversity, because it’s not really a group at all. They are just popular intellectuals that have all been cast out by the far right and left fanatics, and they just happen to enjoy talking to one another. They don’t need quotas for the amount of Jews, Atheists, Christians, and agnostics because as I said before, they aren’t a formal group with memberships and rules. That’s what makes the whole thing cool. I’ve seen Jordan Peterson and even Sam Harris talk to people like William Lane Craig (a true Christian in the classic sense and an intellectual).

Evil Allowed to Permit the Ultimate Good. So, the final question that must be tackled is this: If God is good, then why would he allow evil to exist in the first place? Why would he create a condition where evil could exist? The answer to this is quite simple. God’s allowance of evil is to allow a greater good. What is that greater good? Love. For love to truly exist, it must be free. It must be freely given, freely received, and reciprocal between both parties. God could have created us as robots or automatons. But, that would not provide true love. The ultimate love was given in Jesus, who experienced the horrors of torture and experienced the just punishment that we deserve. He did so that we would have life eternally. The penalty of our eternal punishment was paid on the cross at Calvary. God lovingly confers his grace to all who would willingly receive. His grace is freely offered and is freely received. This kind of love would not be possible if God did not allow the conditions that would allow evil to exist. A greater good has come. One day, those who have trusted Christ for their salvation will no longer need to worry about evil because evil will be vanquished.

“Sex is one of the strongest generators of the dopamine reward,” the Hooked authors point out. This is not inherently bad, but overstimulation can cause the brain to become relatively resistant to it, leading the indiscriminate to engage in more and more of the same behavior to regain the high, not unlike the spiral of addictive drug use. “For this reason, young people particularly are vulnerable to falling into a cycle of dopamine reward for unwise sexual behavior – they can get hooked on it.” But when the relationships are short-lived, the losses due to breakup are felt in the brain centers that feel physical pain and can actually be seen on a brain scan. It’s not hard to see how multiple relationships, each with its own cycle of bonding and breaking, can lead to profound pain, anxiety, and confusion, especially among teens still far from emotional maturity.

What to pray for this week: Pray that God would remind us that Jesus is God in human form, that He walks with us just as truly as when He walked this earth, that He remains full of grace and truth. Download 21 Days of Prayer for Life! bit.ly/2CkG6ff pic.twitter.com/SLAv7KO3tw

For more resources visit: http://www.reasonablefaith.org In 1998, Dr William Lane Craig debated Professor Keith M. Parsons at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX. The topic of the debate was "Why I Am/Am Not a Christian." After the debate there was a lengthy exchange between the debaters lead by the moderator. The debate concluded with a question and answer period allowing both Dr Craig and Professor Parsons the opportunity to respond. We welcome your comments in the Reasonable Faith forums: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/forums/ Be sure to also visit Reasonable Faith's other channel: http://www.youtube.com/reasonablefait... Follow Reasonable Faith On Twitter: http://twitter.com/rfupdates Add Reasonable Faith On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reasonablefai...

The last few hundred years have revealed mountains of additional manuscript evidence for the New Testament, as archaeologists uncover more and more ancient scrolls and codices from the earliest centuries AD. This rich collection of manuscript evidence—far more than for any other ancient work—means that modern translators can draw on a clearer composite picture of what the original New Testament manuscripts said. Yet these new discoveries have changed almost nothing of substance between older versions of the Bible, like the KJV, and newer versions which are based on an older and broader collection of manuscripts.

Any talk of studying history sounds dull and irrelevant. But the Christian faith is a religion that is based in human history. The most important event in Christianity was an historical event—Jesus Christ rising from the dead. Here are seven reasons why every Christian should study history.

A conservative evangelical author was recently quoted in the Washington Post as saying that “Christ was God come to Earth, and for whatever reason He chose to come as a man.” I couldn’t help but cringe. “For whatever reason”? This seems to imply that the reason God became incarnate as a male is either a mystery we can never hope to solve, or even that the male incarnation was arbitrary. Perhaps Jesus could have accomplished His salvific work just as well as a woman! Statements like this one get to the heart of the evangelical crisis of authority—a crisis we could boil down to one question: Is there a discernible moral and social order built into creation, as the old Christian theologians thought—an order which Christ came to this world to restore and glorify—or do the graces of salvation and special revelation abolish the natural order in favor of something unprecedented? Is our journey toward the New Jerusalem to some extent a return to Eden, as John implies in the closing chapters of Revelation, or is it a journey to a different world entirely alien to Eden, and to this? Put more

Why People Stop Believing by Paul Chamberlain
This book addresses a growing need in apologetic literature. It is a response to the growing wave of Christian leaders who are rejecting Christianity and becoming some of its most ardent critics, often supported by a plethora of new organizations arising to encourage such people to cut ties to their faith. This is a new challenge from a different breed of critics who are using their instant credibility and insider’s knowledge of theology, the Bible, church history, even apologetics, to debunk the faith they once believed and promoted. They have taken aim at the foundations of Christianity, including God, the Scriptures, miracles and the supernatural, and Christianity’s perceived inherent prohibition on free enquiry.

This article first appeared in the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, volume 36, number 06 (2013). The full text of this article in PDF format can be obtained by clicking here. For further information or to...

Neither trait is worthy of “greatness” or “honor.” I will conclude and paraphrase what Lewis concluded: if Jesus was not lying or crazy, He must be the Son of God. If we allow Jesus to be framed a “great prophet or teacher,” we have allowed Him to be relegated to the level of any other religious sage, with a message no more or less important than that of Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, or numerous others–famous or obscure. The “truth” becomes simply a matter of personal pragmatism, if it works for you, then it is good for you. While this may work if we are only concerned with people governing themselves according to some moral guidelines, it cares nothing for the souls of men or their eternal future. This is not acceptable in the Christian faith.

As you can see from these examples, “faith” is trust in God—trust that He will faithfully fulfill His promises in the future, trust that “He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (which is how 11:6 defines “faith”). It’s the kind of trust that leads to visible obedience now. The “things hoped for” were not yet seen by these faithful people because those events were in the future. In other words, the use of the term “not seen” is not meant to convey the idea of a lack of evidence ; it merely stresses the idea of a future fulfillment .*

Last night, President Donald Trump announced Brett Kavanaugh will be his nominee to replace retiring justice Anthony Kennedy. Here are nine things you should know about Judge Kavanaugh:
1. Brett Kavanaugh , age 53, was born in Washington, DC, and educated at Yale University (BA) and Yale Law Law School (JD). He previously served in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2001. . He was appointed as a judge to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by George W. Bush.
2. After graduating law school, Judge Kavanaugh clerked for two appeals court judges and for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court. He also served as an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States and an associate counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr. As part of the Independent Counsel, Kavanaugh drafted the report refuting the claim that Bill Clinton’s Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster was the victim of a murder plot and coverup. Kavanaugh was also the primary author of the section of the 1998 Starr report that detailed grounds for a possible impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton.

Although the employment status of formerly incarcerated people is not a new subject, this report extends upon previous research by constructing an unemployment rate for formerly incarcerated people that is similar to what is typically accepted by economists: those who were not employed at the time of the survey but were available and actively looking for a job, divided by the total number of people in the labor force (Note: the Bureau of Labor Statistics considers jobless people who have looked for work in the past 4 weeks as part of the labor force. The National Former Prisoner Survey does not stipulate 4 weeks and instead asked respondents if they were currently looking for work).

If an article or post makes us angry, we should almost never write in the heat of irritation. In that frame of mind it is very difficult to “be gentle [and] show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2). It is best to wait and pray. An hour or a day will likely yield a more gracious comment, if one is needed at all.

🤝 Stand with us: https://www.gofundme.com/askdrbrownst... 07-13-18 Dr. Brown takes your calls today on the Line of Fire. All subjects welcome! Listen live here 3-4 pm EST, and call into the show at (866) 348 7884 with your questions and comments. Multistreaming with https://restream.io/

Thanks for your courageous article: 1) 2) & 3) :)
@RealPresidentT Trump isn't perfect, but he's done more for Christian freedoms than any recent politician. I believe he's a good man doing his best, courageously. You forgot one: he's very receptive to prayer over his Presidency.

BreakPoint This Week: A Supreme Pick? John & Ed discuss what to expect from Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh, as well as the left’s bizarre celebration of abortion. They also call out “the religious left” for remaining silent on the evil of abortion. bit.ly/2Lc3A9Q pic.twitter.com/Jr1AeKc5mZ

What to pray for this week: Pray people would realize the awful responsibility before God they have when considering abortion. Pray that this realization would cause them to stop before they commit this deed. Download 21 Days of Prayer for Life! bit.ly/2CkG6ff pic.twitter.com/sgxeZEmV89

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God . . . and having done all . . . stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13). Stand your ground. Do not yield an inch. More than that, press your enemy back, and take his ground. He will fight back, and it will get ugly at times. Don’t panic. Fight. “With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes” (Psalm 108:13).

Frank reflects on the life of Charles Krauthammer who just recently passed away then retakes the topic of his last podcast that focused on the question “What worldview best explains the biggest questions in life?” He deals with some of the most important questions we need to answer. Questions such as: Why is the universe fine-tuned? Why is there reliable cause and effect? Why is there such a thing as evidence? How did life begin? and many more. Listen to find out the answer to these questions.

For it (the kingdom of heaven) is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves, and entrusted his possessions to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents. In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more. But he who received the one talent went away and dug in the ground, and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. And the one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me; see, I have gained five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.’ The one also who had received the two talents came up and said, ‘Master, you entrusted to me two talents; see, I have gained two more talents.

Finally, Paul concludes with Christ’s resurrection from the dead, highlighting
His enormous power—“the firstborn from the dead” (verse 18). In Psalm 8 we read
that God sprinkled the stars into the universe with His fingers (verse 3). But
when speaking of Christ’s work of redemption (Isaiah 53), the prophet asks,
“To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (verse 1). Creating the stars
may have been a mighty miracle, but even greater was overcoming death in order
to redeem us from our sin. This is the exclamation point for Paul as he encourages
us to acknowledge the preeminence of Christ.

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth..." Galatians 3:1
Replace 'Galatians' with 'Evangelical Christians' and you've got the start of Paul's epistle to the American church, which obeys rightwing political ideology instead of Jesus.

Today, traumatic brain injury gets a lot of attention. Sports stories about concussions and soldiers coming home from war zones have brought TBI to the national consciousness. But in 1984, care options for someone in Phil Foil’s position were limited. bit.ly/2meAfNW pic.twitter.com/gYtLU0XMIe

It was then—in 2017—that the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage (ARCH) actively stepped in. Teaming up with the GEMA Art Group, a Czech company specializing in historic restorations, ARCH managed to stabilize the shrine and stop its deterioration. The community of al-Qosh welcomed the restoration efforts and hope that soon pilgrims will begin visiting the prophet’s tomb once again.

"Each parish has to raise the money themselves… if they need to fix the roof or something like that - it costs a lot of money. If you want to fix a roof it's half a million quid… and in the past there has been funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund but that's gone down quite substantially in the last couple of years."

In our marriages and child-rearing, God tells us something of who He is and the depth of His love for us. In these things God works on us, in us, and through us. These ordinary tasks are the front-lines of the kingdom of God. bit.ly/2KP8MB8 pic.twitter.com/1s40mnxUOL

My point exactly. It's not the human you care about, the woman carrying the baby, it's the fetus you want control of,because it comes out of a vagina. It's controlling vaginas = women. Bubba in Kentucky doesn't care about babies, he cares about controlling vaginas.

If we don't vote according to our values, what measure do we use? Isn't that what scripture calls us to follow, the values of the Word of God? I'm not as concerned about what America can live without but what guides what we as followers of Christ are "learning to value".

Megan writes, “Hello, Pastor John! I’m with you when you say that Christian Hedonism says my happiness is not at odds with God’s will for me. But what about the dark season of trials? In these seasons it seems my happiness is not as significant as God’s intent to grow my holiness. How would you describe the pain of trials in light of Christian Hedonism and God’s desire for my joy?”

I am the author of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason, published by Inter-Varsity Press. I received a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.

Andrew Peterson describes how the beauty and heroism of fantasy and science fiction novels gave him a true hunger for a world beyond this—a hunger that was only satisfied by the gospel of Jesus Christ. @AndrewPeterson bit.ly/2KZP0Cf pic.twitter.com/5AqJMSn1SH

I think this declaration bugs me because it’s not helpful. Of course God isn’t a registered voter, but that doesn’t mean he’s an opinionless dissident. What should disquiet the American Christian conscience isn’t the possibility that one of our political factions is “God’s own party,” but the reality that God does indeed care about politics. He cares about what citizens, governments, and nations do. The question isn’t what party or agenda God belongs to. It’s whether we belong to him.

Trump’s choice for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, is a rock-solid conservative with impeccable judicial credentials. He’s a good choice. That’s why I signed a statement with other evangelical leaders urging the Senate to confirm Judge #Kavanaugh . bit.ly/2umEta6 pic.twitter.com/ADVtVQJQc8

Minor little offshoot from within the column above: Trump’s tweets often come up in the context of Christians being offended by them or somehow taking issue with them. I am a Christian—and I have no problem with Trump’s plain-spoken or even combative speech. Frankly, I welcome it and I think it’s needed. I’m sick of politicians using greasy language to make it sound like they’re saying something when they’re really not saying anything. War on a battlefield isn’t pretty, and Christian warriors get bloody and dirty (well…they do if they want to win). Christians don’t kill more gentleman-like. The cultural war we’re in is really no different, and the stakes are just as high—we could lose our Country and our freedoms. This war is fought with words conveying ideas. Very often those things need to be said starkly, plainly, and forcefully in order to get and hold peoples’ attention. Our politicians HAVE been “stupid” in matters of trade. Why sugarcoat it? Strozk and Page ARE “lovebirds”. Why not say it? Hillary IS crooked and SHOULD be in jail. Why not say it? The Mueller Probe IS a witch hunt.

This is absolutely the worst thing I've read in weeks!!! How can someone be fired for telling the actual scientifically based truth about anatomy??? When I was in college getting my Masters Degree in psychology I was taught that people who believe they were born the wrong gender